Erotic 'Fifty Shades' trilogy dominates publishing in 2012

The "Fifty Shades of Grey" trilogy by best-selling author E L James was easily the year's biggest hit, selling more than 35 million copies in the U.S. alone and topping bestseller lists for months. Rival publishers hurried to sign up similar books and debates started over who should star in the planned film version. Vintage Books

E
L James' erotic trilogy was easily the year's biggest hit, selling more
than 35 million copies in the U.S. alone and topping bestseller lists
for months.

Rival publishers hurried to sign up similar books and
debates started over who should star in the planned film version.
Through James' books and how she wrote them, the general public was
educated in the worlds of romance/erotica, start-up publishing and "fan
fiction."

But the success of James' novels also captured the dual
state of the book market — the advance of e-books and the resilience of
paper. In a year when print was labeled as endangered and established
publishers referred to as "legacy" companies, defined and beholden to
the past, the allure remained for buying and reading bound books.

James
already was an underground hit before signing in early 2012 with
Vintage Books, a paperback imprint of Random House Inc., the house of
Norman Mailer and Toni Morrison, a house where legacy is inseparable
from the brand. She could have self-published her work through Amazon.com, or released her books from her own website, and received a
far higher percentage of royalties.

"We had a very clear
conversation back in January about the need for a very specific
publishing strategy," says Vintage publisher Anne Messitte. "We talked
about distribution, a physical format, publicity. And she was basically
clear that she needed what we did as publishers to make that happen."

"Fifty
Shades" began as an e-phenomenon, understandable since digital erotica
means you can read it in public without fear of discovery. But according
to Messitte, sales for the paperbacks quickly caught up to those for
e-books and have surpassed them comfortably for the last several months.
Everyone was in on the secret. The series sold big at Amazon.com, but
also at Barnes & Noble and independents, at drugstores and airports.

Publishers
from several major houses agreed that e-books comprise 25-30 percent of
overall sales, exponentially higher than a few years ago, but not
nearly enough to erase the power of paper. And the rate of growth is
leveling off, inevitable as a new format matures. Simon & Schuster
CEO Carolyn Reidy said e-sales were up around 30 percent this year, less
than half what she had expected.

"We saw all these huge sales for
tablets and huge sales for other machines coming out and assumed there
would be a lot of new e-book readers," Reidy says. "But in retrospect
there were a lot of current e-book readers who were upgrading their
machines. And tablet owners do not use e-books as much as those with
dedicated e-book readers" such as Amazon's Kindle.

"There are some
people who think that print will go away, but 'Fifty Shades' is an
indication of why that's not going to happen," says Messitte, who added
that the books attracted many non-readers who don't own e-devices.
"You're going to need a mix of ways to read."

The rise of e-books
has shaken, but not broken the way books are published and sold.
Membership in the independent stores' trade group, the American
Booksellers Association, has increased three years in a row after
decades of decline. Amazon is a draw for many self-published authors,
but its efforts at acquiring and editing books — "legacy" publishing —
have been mixed.

An in-house imprint, headed by former Time Warner
Book Group chief Laurence J. Kirshbaum, has so far landed few works of
note beyond a memoir by Penny Marshall and an advice book on cooking by
lifestyle guru Timothy Ferriss. Rival sellers have refused to stock
Amazon's books, limiting their sales potential. And if publishers suffer
from their reputation — often earned — of being slow to adapt to
technology, they benefit from a reputation — often earned — for being
nice to their writers.

"There certainly is the comfort factor, and
part of that comfort factor is the culture of old publishing, which is
very collegial and warm and friendly," says Richard Curtis, a literary
agent who represents several writers publishing with Amazon. "Authors
contemplating Amazon are concerned about a loss of that warmth."

Amazon,
the acknowledged leader in e-book commerce, remains the dominant player
in what could still become the dominant format, and two of the year's
major stories would never have happened without industry concern over
the Internet retailer and publisher.

In April, the U.S. Department
of Justice sued Apple and five publishers for alleged price fixing of
electronic books, a lawsuit originating from Apple's 2010 launch of the
iPad and iBookstore, which publishers hoped would weaken Amazon's
ability to discount works so deeply that no other seller could compete.
In October, the corporate parents of Random House Inc. and Penguin Group
(USA) announced a planned merger, widely believed as a way to counter
Amazon.

One of the publishers sued, HarperCollins, settled in the
fall and prices for such new works as Michael Chabon's "Telegraph
Avenue" dropped from $12.99-$14.99, common under the Apple model, to
Amazon's preferred $9.99. But Chantal Restivo-Alessi, HarperCollins'
chief digital officer, said there was no noticeable difference in sales,
adding that bargain hunters tend to seek out older books.

"With
new books, if you want to read that book, you're going to read that
book," she said. "You're not going to replace it with a cheaper book."